


Wherever You Go, There You Are

by exbex



Category: Salem's Lot (TV 1979)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Insanity, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth is perhaps less interesting than vampires, though perhaps also sadder and more frightening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherever You Go, There You Are

If his muse happens to be a creepy, dilapidated old house, then so be it, Ben decides. His real muse is gone, even the scent finally having disappeared from her clothes, so he boxes up the clothes for donation, lets the lease run out, and decides to head home. 

He is not a writer of horror stories, but he had been when he was a boy. It had worried his parents, so he had moved on from that fascination, but to return home means to return to things one has thought to have left behind.

If Susan looks just like Carol, down to the way she lounges as she becomes engrossed in a book, then that is merely a coincidence. This is what Ben tries to tell himself.

Ben is not a writer of horror stories, but his muse is gone, even the scent finally having disappeared from her clothes. His parents are worried, but Ben does not write fairy tales, eschews the very idea of a knight rescuing his princess (his princess has been devoured by a dragon, because he had not gone with her, she had been driving alone, he had abandoned her, he hadn’t saved her).

The house is just a house, a dilapidated old house, but Ben is a boy who loves horror stories, so every shadow in the house is something sinister.

It worries his parents, but the thing about horror stories is that you know what you’re getting. The horror stories deliver, while the fairy tales are lies, (because his princess has been devoured by a dragon, because he had not gone with her, she hand been driving alone, he had abandoned her, he hadn’t save her, he had killed her).

There’s a little voice in his head that tells him he’s crazy for wanting to rent the house. But it’s not his choice. He’s already trapped inside the house. If he can write himself out of this story, he can finally be free.

The story that Ben writes is not the story that he wants to write. His princess is still devoured by a dragon, he abandons her, he doesn’t save her-he kills her. It’s the same story, over and over again. He can’t write himself out of the story. One cannot kill the story’s monster if the monster is the one holding the pen.


End file.
